The flip-flop of Gloria Matta Tuchman is very understandable; the Christian right have been seeding politicians of their same thinking into all levels of the government since the ’92 election. Republican conservatives have plainly stated that the public school systems have failed. And who will benefit most from a voucher system? Religious and private schools of course, as they can be controlled and forward their agendas to future generations of children. In their view, most of this country’s problems can be solved by privatizing everything.

We in this country had better wake up. Each and every day a little bit of our constitutional privileges is being taken away from us. We can not afford to ignore voting. It is the only way our system can continue. We can no longer be assured of our rights.

I am very concerned about the article I read regarding The Gap’s control over 418 acres in the Elk area. I was visiting friends in the tiny town of Elk about two weeks ago. My friends, Elk residents for over twenty years, often take me on hikes throughout the woodlands there (or what’s left of them). It always frustrates and saddens me to see an increasing number of trees tagged for destruction.

Elk was once a booming loggers’ town. Now the population is dwindling and there is not much one can do there to earn a living. Logging still goes on, but there is little left to cut. Most, if not all, of the old growth is gone, sunlight shows through to the bottom of a once cool forest floor, and poison ivy and other low bushes abound. The lumber companies, faced with the disappearance of lucrative old-growth harvests, are increasingly turning their machinery on smaller and smaller trees. What will be left for the future? This is not only a loss of a beautiful forest and the ecosystem it nurtures, it is also devastating to what is left of the future for the economy of a small, getting smaller, town.

As one who lived thru WWII, I must say there are some complete idiots out there. Japanese-Americans were put into concentration camps, even as they were fighting for this country. They had to fight in the European theater, because it was feared they might feel some loyalty to the Japanese if they were assigned to the Pacific regions. Americans of Italian and German decent were not treated in this fashion. Racism? Of course it was. We did something wrong during the war and no historical revisionism can change the facts. We live in the greatest country in the world, but have and do make mistakes once in awhile. This one was a whopper.